THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 22, 2014 89
The sun was a wolf. The fanged light
had been trailing him for hours,
tricky with clouds. As it emerged again
from sheepskin, Jack looked down at the
pavement, cursed. He'd been walking
around since ten, temperature even then
close to ninety. The shadow stubs of the
telephone poles and his own midget sil-
houette now suggested noon. He had no
hat, and he'd left his sunglasses somewhere,
either at Jamie's or at The Wheel, or they
might have slipped o his head. They did
that sometimes, when he leaned down to
tie his shoes or empty them of pebbles.
Pebbles?
Was that a word? He stopped to
consider it, decided in the negative,
and then marched on, flicking his thumb
ceaselessly against his index like a Zippo.
His nerves were shot, but unable to
shut down. No o button now. He'd be
zooming for hours, the crackle in his
head exaggerated by the racket of birds
rucked up in towers of palm, tossing the
dry fronds. What were they doing?
Ransacking sounds. Looking for nuts or
dates, probably. Or bird sex. Possibly
bird sex. Maybe he should walk to
Rhonda's, ask her to settle him. Or un-
settle him. Maybe he wanted more.
Share was what she should do, if she had
any. He always shared with her. Not al-
ways, but it could be argued.
Rhonda was a crusher, though, a big
girl, always climbing on top. Her heft was
no joke, and Jack was a reed. Still, he loved
her. Ha! That was the tweak coming on.
He'd never admit to such a thing when he
was flat. Now his immortal brain under-
stood. He wanted to marry Rhonda, haul
her up the steps of her double-wide,
pump out about fifty kids. In the fly-eye
of his mind he saw them, curled up like
caterpillars on Rhonda's bed.
Jack picked up the pace.The e ect of
his late-morning tokes was far from
finished. Though he'd pulled nothing
but dregs (the last of his stash), it was
coming on strong, sparking his heart in
unexpected ways.
So much gratitude. Jack made a fist
and banged twice on his chest, thinking
of Flaco, a school friend, now dead,
who'd first turned him on to this stu ---a
precious substance whose unadvertised
charm was love. It was infuriating that
no one ever mentioned this. The post-
ers, the billboards, the P.S.A.s---all they
talked about were skin lesions and rot-
ten teeth. Kids, sadly, were not getting
well-rounded information. If Jack hadn't
lost his phone, he'd point it at his face
right now and make a documentary.
Tra c, a lot of it. On Speedway now,
a strip-mall jungle, which, according
to his mother, used to be lined with palm
trees and old adobes, tamale peddlers and
mom-and-pop shops. Not that Jack's
mother was nostalgic. She loved her
Marts---the Dollar and the Quik and the
Wal. "Cheaper, too," she said. She liked to
buy in bulk, always had extra. Maybe he
should go to her place, instead of Rhon-
da's, grab some granola bars, a few bottles
of water for his pack. Sit on the old yel-
low couch under the swamp cooler, chew
the fat. He hadn't seen her in weeks.
Weeks?
Again, the word proved thin, suspect.
"Mama,"he said, testing another---an ut-
terance that stopped him in his tracks and
caused his torso to jackknife forward.
Laughed to spitting. He could picture her
face, if he ever tried to call her that. She
preferred Bertie. Only sixteen years his
senior, she often reminded him. Bertie of
the scorched hair, in her sparkle tops and
toggle pants. "What's it short for?" he
once asked of her name. She'd told him
that his grandfather was a humongous
piece of shit, that's what it was short for.
Of course, Jack had never met the fa-
mous piece of shit, had only heard sto-
ries. Supposedly he and Grandma Shit
still lived in Tucson, might be anywhere,
two of Jack's neighbors. He might have
passed them on the street, or lent them
an egg or a cup of sugar.
Jack tittered into his fist. What eggs?
What sugar? There was fuck-all in the
fridge. In fact, depending on his loca-
tion, there might not even be a fridge.
Buses roared past, their burning
flanks throwing cannonballs of
heat at the sidewalk. Jack turned away,
moved toward himself, a murkier version
trapped in the black glass façade of a
large building. Twenty-two---he looked
that plus ten. Of course, a witch's mirror
was no way to judge. The dark glass was
spooked, not to be trusted. Hadn't Jamie
said, only yesterday, in the lamplit corner
of the guest bedroom, that Jack looked
all of sixteen? "Beautiful," Jamie had
whispered, touching Jack's cheek.
Beautiful. Like something stitched
on a pillow, sentimental crap from some
other era. The lamplit whisperings had
made Jack restless, the dissolved crystal
blowing him sideways like a blizzard.
To hell with Jamie! Last week, after
partying all night, Jack had woken up to
find Jamie lying beside him, the man's
hand crawling like a snail across the
crotch furrows of Jack's jeans. Half dead,
in deep crash, Jack hadn't even been sure
they were his jeans---the legs inside
them looked too skinny, like a kid's.
He'd watched the snail-hand for a
good five minutes, feeling nothing---
and then, with a gush, he'd felt too
much. When he leaped from the bed,
Jamie screeched, "Oh my gosh! Oh my
gosh!"---apologizing profusely, claiming
he'd flailed in his sleep.
"Why are you in my bed at all ?"Jack
had asked, storming into the bathroom
with shame-bitten fury. He'd got into
the shower, only to find a bar of soap as
thin and sharp as a razor blade---scraped
himself clean as best he could, until he
smelled breakfast coming on hot from
the kitchen. It had turned out to be sil-
ver-dollar pancakes with whipped
cream and chocolate chips. Jack's favor-
ite. Could the man stoop any lower?
Jamie just didn't add up. A bearded
Mexican with a voice like a balloon los-
ing air. Wore pleated slacks, but without
a belt you could sometimes glimpse
thongs. Didn't smoke, but blew invisible
pu s for emphasis. And the name---
Jamie---it sat uncomfortably on the
fence, neutered, a child's name, wrong
for anyone over thirty, which Jamie
clearly was. Plus he was fat, which made
his body indecisive, intricately layered
with loose slabs of flesh---potbelly and
motherflaps. "Stay with me, why don't
you?" he'd said, for no discernible reason,
at the Chevron rest-room sink, where
Jack had been rinsing his clotted pipe.
That had been a week ago, maybe two.
They'd been strangers in that rest room,
the obese man appearing out of the
gloom of a shit stall. His words, stay with
me, had seemed, to the boy, vaguely futur-
istic, a beam of light from a spaceship.
Jack should have known better.
The sun drilled the boy's head, look-
ing for something. He closed his
eyes and let the bit work its way to his
belly, where the good stu lived, where
the miracle often happened: the black